Upgrade Completer

Two years ago, Antony Lavelle released Upgrade Complete. A mix of shoot em up and space invaders, the games main purpose was to unsubtly parody one of the more obnoxious aspects of modern gaming: the inclusion of unnecessary and convoluted upgrade systems. Everything came at a price and had to be bought: weapons, graphics, music, buttons... even the pre-loader and Armor Games intro animation. However... it turns out that the developers weren't quite done... After all, what is an upgrade system without a sequel that requires you to restart your progress from the beginning? Thus comes Upgrade Completer, a game that advances the original's premise as much as its humor.

You get more money from coins if they have been falling for less time. Also, enemies do not hurt you directly. As such flying at the top of the screen or in groups of enemies will get you a lot more money than sitting at the bottom.

Early on you should spend most of your money on upgrading your ship, so you earn money faster.

Some upgrades are obviously essential to get playing at the start. They are: UPGRADES! 1, Exit Upgrades, User Interface 1, HUD, and Play Button. Most other upgrades are superficial and don't make much difference to the actual gameplay.

Upgrade your ship parts to get the most out of them.

Make sure to get both foil and boost modules to improve maneuverability.

Magnet modules are very useful for getting more money; I recommend getting at least one fully upgraded.

Other than that, just blast away with as many guns as possible. You can use as many as you can fit on the grid. Rockets and lightning are particularly good as they automatically target enemies, even if they're partly offscreen.

80 Comments

I have to say, the review did not completely cover the location of this "screamer". For all the squeamish (me), you might want to minimalize that browser window before upgrading "BPM".

Of course, being the coward I am, I daren't get back to the game now, however fun it were and however badly the screamer was made. I still give it a full 5 mushrooms, as that is approximately the multiplier applied to the amount of upgrades.

I think the screamer is released when you reach a certain percentage, not any individual upgrade. Sad, I hate to see this kind of random trolling in such a good game. It's the only one I've seen so far, though.

I don't want to be too negative about this. This is still a cool idea. But it's disappointing that none of the upgrades actually improve anything. The sound effects start out as cheesy (but kind of charming) voice work, and upgrade all the way up to cheesy cliched shooter effects. The avatar starts as a boring little blurry guy and upgrades into a terrible alien thing. The voice work starts out as cheesy and funny in one way, then upgrades to being cheesy and funny in another way.

I guess the intention is for the game to "upgrade" without anything actually improving, to satirize how upgrades in other games don't really improve the experience either. But what's the point? This would be so much more awesome if you could actually upgrade it into a good game.

Dave Lopo: In the upgrade menu is an option for UPGRADE BPM priced at 1 dollar. Buying this upgrade will trigger the screamer.

about 4-7 seconds after buying the upgrade (as soon as you buy a different upgrade?), a loud constant scream will sound, and an angry face will fill the game screen and will flip between having a greenish color palate and a blueish one.
(so its blinking different colors)

after it disappears, the game will give you the achievement "Saw it coming"

putting a screamer in a game is the lowest of the low if you ask me though...

A couple of rocket launchers, about six or seven lasers, and about a dozen bomb chargers. Everything fully upgraded. Focus all lasers on the boss, and hold Space so the bomb will go off as soon as it's charged. Keep all your focus on the boss, and try to float on top of it so all your bomb shots hit it. With this, the boss exploded just before it left the screen; I'm sure with more lasers it would take a shorter time.

1) My save file vanished. I have to start over, and I had a good few upgrades, too. And it WAS saving, as it disappeared after about the fifth time I came back to the game.

2) I don't think the magnet works. At all. Even upgrading it does literally nothing. The coins don't come to me at all. At least it worked in the last game.

[Sorry, the loss of save data was my fault. I uploaded a new version and changed the filename to be sure everyone gets the new version rather than a cached version, but the game must use the filename for the save file. I've just switched it back to the original filename, so your save file should be back now. -Jay]

I'm having the opposite problem from Wolfgang -- I don't want to save. I've deleted cookies, history, everything, and I can't seem to start fresh. Boo hoo. It's going to take forever with this yucky ship design to get enough coins to buy more upgrades so I can make a better ship.

[Flash doesn't save in cookies or your browser cache. Flash stores save data by the domain of where you play the game from. Check this page on wikipedia for where Flash stores data for your OS: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_Shared_Object For this particular game, look for the domain games.jayisgames.com. I hope that helps. I've sent a note on to Tony, the developer, requesting a way to reset the game and start over. -Jay]

After a friendly warning from Tricky in the review, I expected it, so the heart rate upgrade didn't make me startle. What I didn't see comming was indie mod which made me LOL hard. Charming game! Deserved its 5 mushrooms.

Another tip for final boss:

if you have all, or almost all upgrades, you don't need all the magnets (I had 8 of them), so you can sell them and put lasers in their place. For me, row of rockets, row of lasers and row of big yellow lightning guns fully upgraded was enough. Afther one unsuccesfull boss fight money wasn't an issue...

[The reason I didn't give that link to elle earlier in this thread is because if you delete settings for jayisgames.com ALL saves for games hosted here at JIG will be deleted. Are you sure you want to do that? You can selectively remove the save for individual games by using the information on this Wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_Shared_Object -Jay]

Well, one more question for this screamer stuff. I'll definitely be prepared for it next time around, but... our faithful reviewer Tricky spoke of an other screamer before he found out the whereabouts of the heart rate one.

So of course, I daren't play the game in fear of another guy going BWUHBWUHBWUHBWUH at me in my face when I am least excepting it. So, does anyone know if there is indeed another screamer, and where is it? (Or when?)

I finished this game out of frustration after crashing my browser completely the first time through, returning to find my nearly complete game had not been saved. It would have been fun had I not had to start over completely.

I have a question about the Boss:

There is a number code above the Boss' head which appears to read 17 9 11 5 1 2 15 19 19 , with some series of periods in between. Maybe this is just a secret message between developers?

There is only one screamer. It comes after a slight delay after upgrading BPM. Since I had also upgraded some other things at the time, I confused cause and effect.

Cams:

I share your confusion. In the end, it's listed as Upgrade Completer at Armor Games, so I just went with that.

Caleb:

It's not that I was even that startled by it, it's just that I don't see how the screamer's inclusion makes it a better game. Either you are startled by it which, you know, ha ha whatever, or you recognize what it is and have to wait while going "Oh... THIS again..."

A laser is your friend. A level five laser is a good friend. An army of lasers is your best friend.

What that means is, don't use any weapon but lasers, maybe have some speed upgrades, and a few magnets, though. Lasers are the best weapon, since they can form a tight concentration of doom, or blanket an area in anhillation.

This is a cool game. More irritating, and more entertaining than its predecessor. But why is it that sometimes when I upgrade something, I prefer the way it was before! Why did the music degrade! Why did the dead pixels start appearing! And why did the background for the menu keep getting worse! Pretty fun game though.

Why do dead pixels start appearing after dead pixels are upgraded? That's the opposite of what should happen, according to the text. The rest seems to work as intended, though.

Cool game. I haven't played it's predecessor so I can't compare the two, but I'm a fan of any break the 4th wall kind of games.

I don't know if the game's designers are the type who check the JIG comments for suggestions for improvement, but I had one little thing bug me. Normally I'm not so nit-picky, but after completing the spelling/grammar update, "categories" was still spelled wrong on the upgrade menu.

And thanks for the heads-up about the screamer. I hate those things and they scare me every time if I'm caught by surprise.

The original Upgrade Complete was one of the greatest games on the internet (In my opinion), So I was dissapointed that I couldn't even play this game for fear of some idiotic face giving me a heart attack!

Exactly how long does this screamer last for, because I'm gonna close my eyes when (or if) I purchase that upgrade.

I am so OCD it's not funny, but I cannot figure out what the OCD upgrade did. Yes, I am obsessing over this, and by the time someone answers this I will probably have it figured out, but please answer anyway: WHAT DOES IT DO?!?

Thanks for the review Tricky, you're too kind!
As for the screamer, well, it was an April Fools day release, maybe one day I'll change it for a sad looking guy half heartedly saying Boo. Or maybe I'll keep that for the sequel so you can upgrade how scary the screamer gets :p .

I think the OCD one is put in there to make people obsess over looking for what it does, but that's just a guess because I clicked the screamer right before that and I didn't know there was a screamer in this game so I was a little busy urinating to notice any subtle changes that might have taken place

For those of you who are ragging on the screamer, which by the way is incredibly tame by screamer standards. I'd just like to point out that the game warns you while loading that there is one in there, sure it doesn't say "Contains Screamer" but if you can claim to be any kind of gamer the threat is obvious, also a $1 upgrade called BPM that "Increases your heart rate"? I'll admit that ones a lot more vauge but it should at least trigger most peoples 'something is a bit off' senses. Yeesh.. Casual gamers.

Achievement Unlocked "Totally saw it coming", add a bit on the end "From a mile away"

That screamer wasn't all that great but it really did piss me off. I didn't get scared but my little cousin who was here watching me became terrified. Instantly closed the game and will never go back to it. Pretty stupid idea if you ask me.

I have a feeling I'm being an idiot and missing something, but wave 51, all the upgrades I can see (?!) upgraded 3 million/billion (can no longer see) in dollars, but still no sign of this elusive boss, or the medals "Upgrade complete" or "champion". Is there a boss upgrade button I cannot find? (P.S. I'm playing the game on Kongregate which I'm beginning to think is the problem!)

the screamer freaked me out,it was the worst thing on the internet,sure,there were a million others scary pics that jump up at you.but i dont mind them because they only stopped my heart(they are too scary),instead of making me run out of my room(damn that loud noise),the warning here is very nice,and Armor Games didnt include a warning(well a warning that is easy to see at least),which should be what make me angry the most,It ruined such a nice game and a game site,i am going to be scared if i ever dare to go on Armor Games again,i think they owe us a apology,you never know who plays games on what sites,and if they include a warning i am going to laugh at it,instead of screaming and so on,and now my legs still hurt from being shocked,if you are going to buy that upgrade,go mute your computer and enjoy a few seconds of flashing screens.

You get more money from coins if they have been falling for less time. Also, enemies do not hurt you directly. As such flying at the top of the screen or in groups of enemies will get you a lot more money than sitting at the bottom.

Early on you should spend most of your money on upgrading your ship, so you earn money faster.

Some upgrades are obviously essential to get playing at the start. They are: UPGRADES! 1, Exit Upgrades, User Interface 1, HUD, and Play Button. Most other upgrades are superficial and don't make much difference to the actual gameplay.

Upgrade your ship parts to get the most out of them.

Make sure to get both foil and boost modules to improve maneuverability.

Magnet modules are very useful for getting more money; I recommend getting at least one fully upgraded.

Other than that, just blast away with as many guns as possible. You can use as many as you can fit on the grid. Rockets and lightning are particularly good as they automatically target enemies, even if they're partly offscreen.

You should be able to fill every available slot. Before the boss, just aim somewhere just above the top-middle laser. Think of yourself as a lawnmower in this respect. For the boss, just focus on it. For me, it went down before making its way fully on the screen.

The 7 magnets make certain you don't miss cash.

The lasers make certain stuff goes down fast.

The 4 lightning is for satisfying my OCD habit of not wasting grid space.

I thoroughly hate screamers with a passion. They scare the crap out of me, and I'm easily startled and have a vivid imagination. I don't even need to hear the scream to piss myself. As soon as I found out in the comments on Kongregate that there was a screamer, I instantly closed the game and fled like a coward to play another one. It would probably be a good game, but since it has a screamer in it, I'll probably never know. -_-

You can actually complete most of the game in what I call lazy mode, since the shooters, lightning and missiles attack automatically. You'll need magnets to collect the coins, of course; I got by with five but it did take me until level 30 before I could afford all the upgrades. Even with the ship almost fully upgraded with lightning and missiles it didn't seem to make much of a dent in the final boss, but a row of fully upgraded lasers soon saw him off.

Pistols: cheapest of the weapons, at only $760 fully upgraded, but also the weakest of the weapons. Can be aimed in different directions so that you get a spread of fire instead of having them all shoot upwards, and also change direction briefly as you tilt while steering left or right. Your ship comes with a built-in fully upgraded pistol.

Lasers: reasonable weapons, as they are only $1200 fully upgraded and only need four grid squares, so they are easy to build early on. However you need to combine them with other weapons otherwise you have to fly from side to side to ensure that you get all of the enemy ships, and you also need to fire them manually so they are no use in lazy mode.

Lightning: expensive weapons, as they are $1960 fully upgraded. Also have the shortest range, but this can be alleviated by building them at the top of the grid. Building multiple level 1 lightning is more cost-effective than upgrading to level 5 until grid squares reach $66. Remember that lightning has a shorter range so place it as high up on the editor as you can.

Missiles: expensive to buy, especially given the 16 grid squares necessary, but dirt cheap to upgrade, as they are only $900 fully upgraded. Only once grid squares reach $128 is it cheaper to buy lightning.

Bombs: Never tried them, so I can't comment. Sorry about that.

Magnets: Essential in lazy mode; the more the merrier. Cost is $520 fully upgraded.

Boosters: Essential if you want to move up or down. Cost is $520 fully upgraded. You probably only need one of these.

Foil: Useful if you have no magnets. Cost is $520 fully upgraded.

Don't forget that your ship starts slightly to the left of centre so unless you have lightning or missiles you'll need to move to the right to find otherwise hidden enemy ships.

After I had bought all the upgrades the main menu didn't seem to work, but I could access the upgrade screen and then I would exit to the screen that I was expecting.

Although you need to have $120 available to buy magnets, boosters or foils, only $60 is deducted when you buy them. Similarly, lasers require $200 of funds but only deduct $150.

There seems to be a bug in that if you upgrade the in-game music (as opposed to the menu music) to 2 out of 3 stars, then the game does not play correctly. The solution is to upgrade the in-game music to 3 stars.

Upgrade the upgrade screen's politeness before you upgrade its opening and closing speed if you want the full effect.

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